Caught in the Morning Light

Woke up shaking,
not the sick shaking
the soft lurid shake
that comes when your
soul has fallen

off
balance,

took it in,
bright sun,
morning air,
sheets blue
duvet brown,
newly published book
right in my sight line from
the crumpled mess of my body,

mornings make you feel
like a cheap piece of old plaster,
fallen off the wall,
ripped from telos,
hung over,
hung under,
still buzzed into a stupor of
electric highway thoughts.

and I think ‘roll’
I think in my head,
‘roll over, get up’
“Oh
you
pretty things”
starts in the back of my mind,
I’m clenching my teeth by this point,

running through
hallways
in the mansion
of my mind,

I’m getting nowhere.
I’m frozen,
Paralyzed,
literally unable to move.

The sun is the new, warm that it is
every morning at eight.
It spins in softly through my window
throwing shadow where it can
shedding light where it wants
Willy-nilly is the sun.

and my eyes are tracing
and my eyes are tracing
and my eyes are tracing patterns
patterns in the ceiling
looking for the faces
that gravity pulled out of the paint
when it was new and fresh,
before it was covered in screams,
other people’s carbon dioxide,
someone else’s world,
life,
words,
relationships,
fights,
showers,
shaves.

And I’m still frozen,
unable to move at all,
trapped in the oak casing of my body.

Waiting for something to crack
something to melt,
something from within to pop or tear.